Bone Black

Natural organic pigment

Pigments sorted by Colour | Type | First date of use | Elements | Pigment timelines

Composition and Properties of Bone Black

Bone black is a finely ground material obtained by carbonizing (charring) animal bones and containing around 10 to 20% carbon. The rest of the material consists of hydroxyapatite (basic calcium phosphate Ca₅(OH)(PO₄)₃) and calcium sulfate.

The term bone black is sometimes used synonymously with ivory black which is a similar pigment made by charring ivory pieces. The modern ivory black is almost always actually bone black due to the scarcity of ivory.

The pigment is very stable as are all carbon blacks it is absolutely lightfast and is compatible with all other pigments.

Pigment

Painted swatch

Video: 'The Different Blacks' by CITY STATIONERY GROUP SAL

Names

Color Index

PBk 8, CI 77267

Word origin

Named after its source: bone black is prepared by charring animal bones.

Beinschwarz

German

Noir d’os

French

Nero d’ossa

Italian

Negro de huesos

Spanish

Preparation

Bone black can be prepared by charring animal bones.

Video: 'Making Handmade Watercolors Bone Black with Madison Woods' by WILD OZARK

History of Use

Bone black has been in use since prehistoric times. The following graph gives the frequency of its use in the paintings of the Schack Collection in the Bavarian State Art Collections in Munich (1).

bone_black-history_of_use

References

(1) Kühn, H., Die Pigmente in den Gemälden der Schack-Galerie, in: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Ed.) Schack-Galerie (Gemäldekataloge Bd. II), München 1969.

Examples of use

Rembrandt, Portrait of Margaretha de Geer, about 1661

1 Dark greyish-green wall to the left: underpaint consisting of red, orange and yellow ochre mixed with bone black and a trace of lead white. The surface glaze contains smalt, red ochre and possibly yellow lake.
2 Deep shadow of the wall: same underpaint layer as in 1) above but the glaze consists now of bone black tinted with red lake and red ochre.
3 Deep brown shadows in the left edge: thick glaze containing smalt, carmine (cochineal) lake over an underpaint of bone black.

Rembrandt-Portrait-of-Margarethe-de-Geer-pigments-1-2-3

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665

4 Dark background: a layer of bone black, another layer containing weld (luteolin), chalk, a little red ochre, and indigo.

Vermeer-Girl-with-a-pearl-earring-pigments-4

Identification

Fiber optics reflectance spectra (FORS)

Spectra by A. Cosentino, Cultural Heritage Science Open Source (CHSOS)

IR Spectrum

Alessia Daveri, Marco Malagodi, Manuela Vagnini, The Bone Black Pigment Identification by Noninvasive, In Situ Infrared Reflection Spectroscopy, Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry 2018:1-8 (March 2018). DOI: 10.1155/2018/6595643

IR Spectrum of bone black at Pigment Database of Inorganic Pigments (University of Tartu, Estonia)
IR Spectrum of bone black mixed with linseed oil by S. Vahur, Database of ATR-IR spectra of materials related to paints and coatings, University of Tartu, Estonia

Raman spectrum

(1) Eugenia P. Tomasini, Emilia B. Halac, María Reinoso, Emiliano J. Di Liscia and Marta S. Maier, Micro-Raman spectroscopy of carbon-based black pigments, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, Special Issue: Raman spectroscopy in art and archaeology, Volume 43, Issue 11, pp. 1671–1675, November 2012.

(2) Alessia Coccato, Jan Jehlicka, Luc Moens and Peter Vandenabeele, Raman spectroscopy for the investigation of carbon-based black pigments, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, Special Issue: 11th International GeoRaman Conference, Volume 46, Issue 10, pages 1003–1015, October 2015. DOI: 10.1002/jrs.4715. Available as pdf.